American Life in Poetry: Column 564

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

I love this poem by Mandy Kahn for its witty account of the way two young people find each other. The poet lives in Los Angeles and this is from her book Math, Heaven, Time, from Eyewear Publishing.

At the Dorm

Week upon week at the dorm she watched himworking at a table with a pencil in his teeth,eating with a stack of books and papers,reading while he walked. His hair wasgroups of angry men, his sweaty cuffs were wrinkledat his forearms: he seemed to be loved by no one.But always there were pairs of houseflieshovering above him, landing on his nest of notes,trailing him as if with streamers and sound.A farm girl, she knew to follow the flies:they'll take you to the milk just pulled to the pail,to the cow's haunch where the meat will one day be sweetest,the swelled pond, the unlatched gate. Everything,she knew, was in those notebookshe would carry: her future, the distances of islands, polesand stars, the reason for the network of men's follies,how to spend the night.